As Eaton understated it in a later report to the secretary of the navy: “The interior of this country being in a state of general revolt renders traveling somewhat dangerous.” The current main threats: Albanian deserters “who restrained by no discipline ravage and murder” and Bedouin tribes “who prey on the defenseless.”
After two days together, Eaton decided to reveal his entire Hamet mission to Major Missett, and the British officer insisted that the consulate’s heavily armed boat accompany Eaton to Cairo. Missett also found a trusty courier to try to deliver another message to Hamet.
Eaton hired a marche, a smallish boat with triangular sails and a small cabin built onto the deck. The larger British vessel, with its canopy flags, had two swivel guns mounted. Each craft carried about a dozen men armed with muskets, pistols, and sabers.
Cairo lies 115 miles upstream from Rosetta. They embarked at 3 P.M. on December 4, passing innumerable little villages, watching a timeless agrarian scene unfold along the shores. Egyptian women toiled in the fields guiding plows pulled by donkeys. Their faces were covered, but suprisingly their breasts were sometimes exposed, as their head-to-toe garment featured long side slits allowing free arm movement for farmwork and easy access for nursing. (Exposing the face was considered more scandalous: A traveler once observed a group of women, when surprised by marauders, flinging their dresses up over their heads to remain modest.)
The following day, headwinds caused the parties to disembark. Eaton succinctly noted “inhabitants oppressed and miserable.” He dined in a garden near a village called Fuor. The villagers along the Nile sometimes supplemented their incomes nicely from boats delayed heading upriver. “In many of the villages are women for the convenience of strangers, a part of whose profits is paid to the government,” wrote William Browne, who passed that way about a decade earlier. He added somewhat oddly: “I didn’t notice that the nature of their calling created any external levity or indecency of behavior.”
While Eaton made no mention of visiting any brothels, he did find time during his stay at Fuor to put on a shooting exhibition for the locals. Consul O’Brien’s nickname for Eaton had been “Captain Rifle.” Eaton placed an orange in front of a large tree and paced off a hundred feet. A crowd of peasants gathered. With their rusty muskets, they knew they’d be lucky even to hit the tree. Eaton raised his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. His shot smacked the orange, which spun in the dust. He reloaded and hit the pulpy target again. His third shot split the orange in half and “astonished the inhabitants.”
Thanks to tow ropes and some decent wind, Eaton and company made some progress up the Nile, but again on the following day they were forced to go ashore. Eaton walked around the village of Sabour, which resembled a ghost town. Two days earlier, a troop of five hundred Albanian deserters had consumed or destroyed nearly everything of value. Torched buildings teetered next to piles of rotten food. The villagers told the Americans that the Albanian banditti appeared headed eastward toward the Damian branch of the Nile, but they warned that a Bedouin tribe was still prowling the area, lingering about four miles to the south. They said they prayed for the return of the English to bring some law and order.
Eaton, his stepson, and the others reboarded their vessels and headed south. From the vantage point of the midriver railing, they saw a group of mounted Arabs swoop down upon a village’s herd of camels, buffalo, and cattle and drive off a half dozen animals. The terrified villagers did nothing but shriek and offered no resistance. “The Arab camp were within half a league [of our boats] but the fire we raised from our fowling pieces upon the vast numbers of pigeons and other small fowl in its environs must have deterred them from attempting to examine our baggage,” Eaton wrote. The expression “examine our baggage” shows his dry wit returning; it’s as though each moment of danger revives him, draining away some of the bile of inaction.
At 6 P.M. the British and American vessels reached Bulac, the port town serving Cairo. They had successfully avoided the Albanian banditti and the Bedouin marauders, but as they came to anchor, a Turkish boat full of armed men and officers approached. Eaton’s dragoman and his Maltese servant, nicknamed “Lewis,” began the parley for permission to pass into the harbor. The loud gutturals, commonplace in Arabic, grew louder and more guttural. Lewis, a wily, resourceful man but hotheaded, grew more agitated. The Turks insulted this servant of a Christian. Lewis fired his musket into the water just ahead of the Turkish boat. Would the Turks open fire? Eaton and the British Captain Vincent made elaborate gestures for calm. The irate Turks, swords in hand, boarded. Eaton and Captain Vincent offered apologies and, with some coins backing their words, placated the Turks.